Does cold affect Bally EMs?

[Simple Sam]

I have my games in my garage where it has started to get rather cold at night.  On one of my games (an 809), the multiplier started acting up.  Rather than resetting to the single coin award when the first coin is inserted, it resets to the second coin and then goes to the first coin award when a second coin is inserted.  It then will continue as normal (next coin it advances to second, coin after than it advances to third, etc).  It wasn't that cold last night and after playing a bit, it started to reset correctly.   Another of my machines also acted up but only briefly.  Both machines have been working great just before this cold snap and both seem to be okay now that it has (temporarily) warmed up a bit.  I'm assuming that this is just the machines not being designed for use in cold garages and as long as I warm up the garage when I'm going to play, I should be okay. 

[DavidLee]

Yes, best to let the machine completely warm up.

[wolftalk]

or you need lubricants that don't thicken as much in the cold.   If you have some kind of grease on the rivets on the contacts plates, that can stall the wiper reset until the grease softens from game heat and friction.


also, thin smear of lubricant is better than a thicker layer the wipers need to snowplow through.

[Simple Sam]

Sounds good. I'll have to make sure that the temperature is comfortable for me and the machines!